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The A4I programme provides companies access to state-of-the-art measurement and analytical technologies through partnership with National Measurement Laboratories (LGC, NPL, NEL), the Science & Technology Facilities Council and Innovate UK.

LGC will support SouthWestSensor to develop an innovative assay for their novel wearable sensor to continuously monitor a stress marker named cortisol.

With the rapid developments of precision medicine and personalised healthcare, accurate and real-time monitoring of biomolecules in blood or tissue could accelerate our understanding of fundamental biological processes. This would support effective monitoring of drug metabolism, improve disease diagnostics and enable the development of novel therapies that require real-time biochemical information to guide treatment. SouthWestSensor have developed a novel wearable sensor for monitoring of a number of analytes and are looking to expand their capabilities to include the stress marker cortisol.

If successful, such a device could be used to improve the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of diseases such as Cushing's syndrome and Addison's disease, as well as provide support to understand athlete progress in sport sciences.

The founder and CEO of SWS, Dr Xize Niu said: “This is a great opportunity for us to secure this A4I funding together with LGC. Partnering with National Measurement Laboratories like LGC will enable us to solve challenges in assay development much faster and bring out product earlier. I would also like to thank Innovate UK on creating this fantastic new funding scheme. ”

Susan Pang, Science Leader Innovation, Molecular and Cell Biology, LGC, agreed, “We are very pleased to be able to provide measurement support to SouthWestSensor and excited about combining our expertise in cortisol assay development with SouthWestSensor’s portable technology that has been successful used for detection of glucose, lactate and thiols.”